From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Borislav Petkov Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2010 10:16:04 +0000 Subject: Re: [PATCH 04/10] x86: mce: fix error handling Message-Id: <20100729101604.GA26495@aftab> List-Id: References: <1280335185-23265-1-git-send-email-segooon@gmail.com> <4C5063D4.4070108@linux.intel.com> <20100728171327.GA24149@albatros> <4C5066CB.7010009@linux.intel.com> <20100729093511.GB7143@albatros> <4C514F04.80603@linux.intel.com> In-Reply-To: <4C514F04.80603@linux.intel.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: Andi Kleen Cc: Vasiliy Kulikov , "kernel-janitors@vger.kernel.org" , Thomas Gleixner , Ingo Molnar , "H. Peter Anvin" , "x86@kernel.org" , Hidetoshi Seto , "linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org" From: Andi Kleen Date: Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 05:51:00AM -0400 > > > IMO memmory allocation fails are dangerous in kernel mode. As it is > > probably not exploitable because of boot time, it can destroy some > > sensitive data like dirty disk caches those are going to be written on > > disk. > > It's true for runtime, but not for normal boot time. > > Anyways if it happens on boot time the only thing you can do is panic, > but someone else > will likely panic anyways for you. Just ignoring it like your patch > effectively does > (because nothing will ever look at the ENOMEMs for an initcall) Not true, initcall_debug will at least dump the -ENOMEM or the other -E's if enabled on the cmdline. So even only for that case does the patch make sense. It's a whole different question whether it actually is prudent to turn on error reporting of failed initcalls unconditionally. -- Regards/Gruss, Boris. Advanced Micro Devices GmbH Einsteinring 24, 85609 Dornach General Managers: Alberto Bozzo, Andrew Bowd Registration: Dornach, Gemeinde Aschheim, Landkreis Muenchen Registergericht Muenchen, HRB Nr. 43632